Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

The big news about “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is — spoiler alert — that it’s good! Despite the prerelease hype,
it won’t save the world, not even Hollywood, but it seamlessly balances cozy favorites — Harrison Ford, ladies and
gentlemen — and new kinetic wows, along with some of the niceties that went missing as the series grew into a
phenomenon, most crucially a scale and a sensibility that are rooted in the human. It has the usual toy-store-ready
gizmos and critters, but it also has appealingly imperfect men and women whose blunders and victories, decency and
goofiness remind you that a pop mythology like “Star Wars” needs more than old gods to sustain it.